M1 Garand
The M1 Garand Semi-Automatic Rifle was the standard weapon of U.S. infantry soldiers from 1936–1957. It is a semi-automatic rifle, self loading shoulder weapon fed by an en-bloc clip that holds eight .30-06 Springfield rifle cartridges. The Garand has a muzzle velocity of 865 meters per second (2,837 feet per second) and an effective range of 550 meters (600 yd). History The story of the first semi-automatic rifle ever widely-adopted as a standard military arm began after the start of the First World War, when the inventor John C. Garand (a Canadian, then living in USA) began to develop a semi-automatic (or self-loading) rifle. He worked at the government-owned Springfield Armory and during the 1920s and early 1930 developed a number of designs. The first prototypes from 1919 to 1924 were built using the unusual primer actuated blowback which worked well, but due to the then new progressive burning propellant this system was unsuitable for a military rifle, so he switched to the more common gas-operated system. He filed a patent for his semiautomatic, gas operated, clip-fed rifle in 1930, and received an US patent for his design late in 1932. This rifle was built around the then-experimental .276 caliber (7mm) cartridge. At the same time, his rifle was tested by the US Military against its main competitor, a .276 caliber Pedersen rifle, and was eventually recommended for adoption by US Army in early 1932. Shortly after, US general MacArthur stated that the US Military should stick to the old .30-06 cartridge. Foreseeing that, Garand already had a variation of his design chambered for 30-06. Finally, at the 6th of January, 1936, the Garand rifle was adopted by the US Army as the "rifle, .30 caliber, M1". Early issue rifles, however, showed quite poor characteristics, jamming much too often for a decent military arm: as a result, a lot of noise was raised that eventually reached the US Congress. In 1939, a major redesign was ordered, and Garand quickly redesigned the gas port system, which greatly improved the reliability. Almost all M1 rifles of the early issue were quickly rebuilt to adopt a new gas system, so very few "original" M1 Garand rifles survives to present days, and those that do are extremely expensive collectors items. When the USA entered World War II, the mass production of the M1 rifles was set at the Springfield Armory and at the Winchester Armory. During the war, both companies built about 4 million M1 rifles, making the M1 Garand the most widely used semi-automatic rifle of World War II. During the war, the M1 Garand proved itself as a reliable and powerful weapon. There were minor attempts to improve it during the war, but these did not leave experimental stages, except for two sniper modifications, M1C and M1D. Both were approved for service in 1945 and both featured a telescope sight which was off-set to the left due to the top-loading feature of the M1. After the end of World War II, the production of the M1 in the USA was stopped, and some rifles and also licenses to build it were sold to other countries, such as Italy and Denmark. With the outbreak of the Korean war in 1950, the production of the M1 for US forces was resumed early in 1952. Rifles were manufactured at Springfield Armory, and also at Harrington & Richardson Company (H&R) and International Harvester Company. Those companies manufactured M1s until 1955, and Springfield Armory produced the Garand until 1957. With the official adoption of the new rifle and ammunition in 1957, M14 and 7.62x51mm NATO, respectively, for US service, the M1 rifle became obsolete. It was still used during the later years, however, due to the lack of M14 and M16 rifles, and saw some service during the early stages of the Vietnam war. Later, many M1s were transferred to the US National Guard, used as a training weapon by US Army or sold to civilians as a military surplus. A few M1 rifles are still used by all branches of the US Military as ceremonial weapons. Other than USA, M1s were used by Italy (where these rifles were later redesigned and rebuilt into 7.62mm BM-59 rifles), Denmark, France and some other countries. There were also attempts to rebarrel the M1 for the 7.62mm cartridge in the USA and to adopt a detachable 20-rounds magazines from Browning BAR rifles, but these were less successful and haven't seen any significant service. The M1 Garand remains a high sought after rifle, and is wanted in the civilian market for primarily hunting and target shooting. Technical Overview M1 is a gas operated, magazine fed, semiautomatic rifle. The original M1 were using gas that was tapped from muzzle by the special muzzle extension, but this was proven unreliable, and since 1939, M1 rifles were built with gas system that used a gas port, drilled in the barrel near the muzzle. The tapped gas was directed into the gas cylinder, located under the barrel, where it operated a long-stroke gas piston, integral with the operating rod. The long operating rod housed inside it a return spring, and ended with the extension, that carried a bolt operating groove at the left and a charging handle at the right. The groove was connected with the rotating bolt, located inside the receiver. The bolt had two locking lugs that locked into the receiver walls. When the gun was fired, hot powder gasses were led to the gas chamber and to the gas piston, which then drove back the operating rod. The bolt operating grove, interacting with the stud on the bolt, rotated bolt to unlock it and then retracted it to commence the reloading cycle. Firing rifle grenades proved a problem for the Garand, as launching a 1.2-pound rifle grenade instead of a 0.02 pound bullet created sufficient excess pressure to severely damage or even outright destroy the gas system. Initially this was handled by issuing the squad grenadier a bolt-action M1903A3 Springfield with an M1 rifle grenade adaptor, or more rarely an M1917 Enfield with an M2. A launcher for the Garand, the M7 rifle grenade adaptor, was finally issued in 1943. This was designed to push open the Garand's gas valve while mounted, turning the gun into a manually-operated repeater. The initial B147428 solid lock screw valve used on early-production Garands did not allow this at all, while the B147851 valve would not self-close after dismounting an M7 and required a shot to be fired to close it. It was not until January 1944 that the 7310079 "poppet" lock-screw with a self-closing valve was standardized. Postwar M7 models (A1, A2, A3) were redesigned to allow semi-automatic fire with the launcher mounted, by using the recoil from launching the grenade to force the launcher assembly back and push the gas valve open, venting gas only during the act of firing. M1 was fed from the integral box magazine, which was probably the weakest point of the whole design. The magazine was fed using only the 8-rounds clips, which stayed inside the magazine until all 8 rounds were shot. As soon as the magazine (and clip) became empty, the bolt was stopped at its rearward position by the bolt catch, and the empty clip was automatically ejected from the magazine with a distinctive sound. The clips were not easy to top-up during combat, but the main issue was that the Garand was difficult to load with rifle grenade blanks. M1 featured a wooden stock with separate handguards and a steel buttplate. The forwardmost part of the muzzle served as a bayonet mounting point. Sights of the M1 consisted of the front sight with dual protecting "wings", dovetailed into the gas block at the muzzle, and the adjustable peephole rear sights, built into the rear part of the receiver. Sniper versions (M1C and M1D) also featured scope mounts on the receiver, offset to the left from the axis of the rifle, so it was possible to load it with clips and also to use its iron sights with scope installed (in the case of the scope damage, for example). There were some attempts to make a handier and more compact version of the M1 by shortening the barrel by some 6 inches (152 mm), with standard wooden or skeleton metallic buttstocks, but these attempts never left the experimental stages. Some short barreled "tankers" M1 rifles, appeared in the post-war period, are not the genuine designs, but the "sawed-off" variations of the standard "long" rifles. References *Modern Firearms -Battle Rifle M1 Garand Category:Semi-automatic rifles Category:Battle rifles